The BlackBerry Gaming team is back from an awesome Game Developer Conference 2013 held last week in San Francisco. The crew was there with the BlackBerry Gaming Booth to show off gaming on BlackBerry to gamers and game developers from around the world.

During BlackBerry Jam Europe 2013, we made a big announcement about Unity support for BlackBerry 10. The big news this time around was the announcement of the Open Beta SDK release that will start in the next few weeks. We have been hard at work to provide a Unity Add On integrated with cool BlackBerry 10 features that game developers have been asking for.

Gamers and game developers got to experience some of the features of the Unity Add On for BlackBerry 10 at Unity’s BlackBerry Pod space. That turned out to be the busiest station we have ever manned. The gamers were stunned at seeing a BlackBerry Z10 turn into a high performance mini console with a simple HDMI cable and a Bluetooth HID Steel Series gamepad controller. They were further excited by the fact that BlackBerry 10 now supports some very popular gamepads out there right out-of-the-box and this feature integrated directly with the Unity SDK. The goal is to have game developers make as little code changes as possible to port their games over along with seamless gamepad support.

Along with the BlackBerry Lead Developer from Unity and CEO of Darkwind media, Scott Flynn, I was co-presented three exciting Unity Booth sessions and a very well received GDC session on Professional Game Engines for BlackBerry 10. For those who missed the sessions, the GDC Session will be directly made available through the GDC vault.

If you are looking to be the first ones to port your Mobile Unity Games to BlackBerry 10, pre-register here for the Unity BlackBerry 10 Open Beta. As a participant in our open beta for the Unity BlackBerry 10 add-on, you get the chance to see how your content will run on this new global platform, and give feedback for improvements directly to Unity developers.

And of course, for any questions, comments, concerns or kudos on the Professional Game Engines, Middlewares or Gaming frameworks for BlackBerry feel free to reach out to me directly at rmadhavan@blackberry.com or connect to me directly on Twitter at @rmadhavan7.

I’ve heard a lot of people claim that the gamepad is dead – doomed to be replaced by touch screens. I disagree with this sentiment. There’s nothing wrong with mobile games using cool new control schemes that make good use of touch screens – but if I’m playing a game that was designed with gamepads in mind, like Shadowgun, why can’t I just use a real controller?

Well, now I can – and so can you. Check out gamepad support now being added in upcoming Unity 4 for BlackBerry 10:

After years of being frustrated by touch screen gamepads, I’m excited about bringing physical gamepad support to the Native SDK for BlackBerry 10. By making use of the new Gamepad API features developers can make their games work with physical controllers, giving their players the tactile responsiveness they’re used to from consoles and desktop PCs. When this is combined with BlackBerry 10’s built-in HDMI connectivity, you end up with a console experience in your pocket!

Here is another video showcasing gamepad pairing instructions and a racer sample on GamePlay3D that now supports not only desktop gamepad support but also BlackBerry 10:

Before you get started implementing this in your own game, I want to answer a few of the most common questions people ask me about the API.

The Wii Remote. Note that currently only the core buttons on the remote itself are supported – that means no attachments and no motion controls, just the D-Pad and other buttons.

If new gamepads come out, do I have to update my game to support them?

No, you don’t! When new controllers become available, we’ll update the mappings in a system update and your game will start receiving gamepad inputs from the new hardware. Because the Gamepad API is an abstraction above HID, and because we map each gamepad’s unique HID report format to the Gamepad API, you don’t need to write any code that’s specific to a single controller.

Do users need to install anything to set up or configure their gamepads?

No. The Gamepad API is integrated into the Screen library, the same library you are already using to handle touch, keyboard, and other input events. All users have to do is pair their device through the Bluetooth settings screen for it to start sending inputs to your game.

We realize there are other gamepads out there and continue to work towards supporting as many devices as possible. If you know of a Bluetooth, HID-compatible game controller that’s not supported yet, please let us know in the comments. Meanwhile, the fact that you won’t have to change your code when we add more devices to the list means you only help yourself (and your users) by starting to use this new feature right away.

Here’s a tutorial that should get you up and running. It includes plenty of code snippets and is based on this open-source sample project, which started as a little app I whipped up to test the new API. It eventually turned into a demo of two-player connectivity and a configuration screen. I hope you find it useful.

Please, for the sake of everyone who’s ever been frustrated by touch controls, try this new feature and leave your feedback – I’m eager to do what I can to help if you have any trouble. Most of all, I’m looking forward to playing your games with a real gamepad!